STROUDSBURG, Pa. — Jim Juscavage of Stroudsburg walks daily along Main Street in the borough, seeing firsthand how dangerous it can sometimes be for pedestrians.
"I'm pretty careful. I try to be very careful all the time," Juscavage said.
But being careful isn't good enough for borough officials. They want to make it safe for people like Juscavage and visiting tourists.
Thanks to a $500,000 LSA grant the borough recently received, pedestrian safety improvements on Main Street could come in the next year.
Larry Kopp, Stroudsburg's borough manager, says it all starts with crosswalks.
"We're going to be painting and taping around all the intersections, and we're going to have what's called bump outs. Basically, we're going to have reflective bump outs, so actually, the area you travel from one side of the street to the other is going to be shorter," Kopp said. "Two of our intersections, people can go diagonally across the intersection, not just across the street. But people don't realize that. The lights are timed that way, so they'll be able to actually go diagonal across the intersection if they have the right painting on the street."
Some of the safety improvements are already at crosswalks on Main Street, but the borough wants to add them to the entire downtown corridor to help with safety and encourage more foot traffic in less-traveled areas.
"We're trying to make one look for the entire community, so it will be pedestrian-friendly and encourage business growth on both sides of town, out of the main area," Kopp added. "This is going to be a great thing for the borough."
"It's great; anything for safety," Juscavage said. "They got to stop the drag racing on the Main Street."
These safety improvements are the first phase of a much larger $15 million project to overhaul all of downtown.
Main Street is a state road, so the borough is waiting for approval from PennDOT. They hope to start work later this year on the improvements.
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